“The Cheka are getting impatient. I know at least three of the systems under their domination are revolting. To maintain the military advantage—at least as far as the numbers go—they’re going to need to augment their armies, especially if they plan to continue their expansion.”
“Negotiating a treaty with the Cheka isn’t possible? Shar asked. “If their goal is to isolate the Turn Key in your DNA strands, why not just give them the computer models? Or cryogenically preserve cellular samples?”
“The Cheka are only satisfied with fertilized, viable eggs that they can experiment on as they develop. They do surgery. Augmentations. They monitor when certain genes are activated in the course of maturing so they can develop their own chromosomal map.”
“Successful research sometimes requires unorthodox methodology,” Shar conceded, guessing that while the Cheka approach might not be ethical by Federation standards, the moral codes governing Cheka society might view experimentation on sentients differently.
Filmy eyelids lifting abruptly, she gaped at him. “You’re thinking reasonably. That’s your first mistake. The Cheka aren’t reasonable.”
Shar believed the Yrythny perceived the Cheka as evil, but civil war was an evil of a different kind—a reality that loomed larger each time they violated the perimeter, for every ship that a web weapon destroyed. “Still. The Cheka blockade is exacerbating the discord among the Yrythny. Is there no compromise to be reached?”
“I have something to show you,” Keren had crossed to the door before Shar could turn off and secure his terminal.
“I have a meeting,” Shar protested, knowing every postponed item carved precious minutes from his research.
“On my authority, consider it canceled,” she said.
“But—”
“Please, Thirishar,” Keren said. “This is more important.”
How the message arrived on Vaughn’s workstation aboard the Avaril,the commander never learned. He had intended on sending a recorded greeting to Dax on subspace, updating her as to the latest stumbling block when he noticed a blinking yellow light. Touching the button affiliated with the light had launched an audio message. M’Yeoh had been right: a shadow trader had found them. The trader had designated a time and place for a meeting where they would discuss terms. Vaughn was to come alone.
So he stood, as instructed, in the hall outside the Cheka suite, wondering if he was supposed to knock.
On the other side of the door, the shadow trader, a Cheka named L’Gon, waited. If he had been truthful, he owned the load that would solve Vaughn’s (and thus the Defiant’s) problem. Vaughn’s concern was that while he technically honored L’Gon’s request and came alone, L’Gon was under no obligation to do the same. In fact, Vaughn believed that the Cheka Master General, several platoons of soldiers and whatever entourage a Master General traveled with would also be inside, but not a single operative representing his crew’s interests. If there was any other way to get this job done….
Two hours ago, he’d sat in the repair bay with Nog, Bashir and several of the engineering staff, watching computer simulations of Nog’s proposed Defiantdefense system. Every alloy Nog had synthesized failed. Most of the femtobots were destroyed as soon as they were deployed beneath the shield envelope. The femtobot defense would have to be scrapped unless a solution could be devised. Attempting to leave this region without protection against the Cheka weapon wasn’t an acceptable risk as far as Vaughn was concerned. Yrythny intelligence had persuaded him that they would be facing additional Cheka weapon deployments indefinitely. With time, we could find an alternative, but next to this raw material we need to make Nog’s scheme work, time is the commodity we lack the most.Vaughn had resigned himself to dealing with L’Gon.
The irony of transacting with the Cheka in order to combat their own weapon didn’t escape him, and he took some satisfaction in the poetic justice of it, but another part of him resented having to pay the neighborhood bully for protection against the bully himself.
When M’Yeoh learned of the deal with L’Gon he’d offered a squadron of J’Maah’s soldiers as backup, reminding Vaughn once again of the double-dealing ways of some shadow traders. The gesture had been appreciated, but Vaughn questioned the judgment of putting armed Yrythny within striking distance of the Cheka suite. Though the Consortium was politically neutral territory, legal declarations meant little in the face of heated emotions.
But Vaughn wasn’t a fool. Knowing M’Yeoh’s estimation of the danger was probably accurate—and having learned that Nog had succeeded in, among other things, restoring Defiant’s transporters—Vaughn put Bowers and Nog at his back. Defiant’s tactical officer would accompany him as far as the suite. (Certainly L’Gon wouldn’t consider that a violation of their agreement.) His job was to stay in the corridor, prepared to contact Nog for an emergency beam-out, should Vaughn fail to emerge at the designated time. Bowers treated the task like something out of the old Western vids he loved so much: he would be the gun-toting deputy while Vaughn was the sheriff heading in to negotiate with the criminals. Vaughn appreciated Sam’s enthusiasm, but cautioned him against scratching the proverbial “itchy trigger finger.”
The door slid open at Vaughn’s approach, and he stepped into the darkly lit lobby, clicking on the alarm on his tricorder’s chrono. In half an hour, without word from him, Bowers would send the signal to Nog, and Vaughn would be transported back to the Defiant. And how hot is it in here? If I’d known I was walking into a sauna…He dabbed at his forehead with his sleeve. When his eyes adjusted to the lack of lighting, he realized a robot had arrived to serve as his escort.
“You are expected,” the robot squawked. “Follow.”
Vaughn complied, still not sure if he was walking toward Defiant’s salvation, or his own doom.
Funny how childhood memories color present expectations,Ezri thought, literally.She stood at the fore railing of the great hydro foil, watching the rise and fall of teal waves garnished in white foam, still surprised that oceans could be any color but purple. She might have been raised around the mines on New Sydney, but extended family on Trill brought her regularly to the homeworld and its violet seas. The first time she’d walked across the Golden Gate Bridge during her Academy days, her eyes seldom lifted to the shimmering cables suspending the bridge above the bay, but focused instead on the dark gray-blue waters, all the while wondering why they were blue. On this world, blue waters would have been too staid; teal waters better suited this stirred-up planet.
The view of Vanìmel from Luthia’s observation decks and windows captured a portrait of a warm, sleepy moss-green world, with white clouds sedately churning through the atmosphere. Descending through the clouds and close in on the surface, Ezri expected a dewy spring day and primeval forest; plants unfurling tender stalks and limbs to the sun’s soft tickle, waters lapping at the seashores with a puppy’s harmless eagerness.
Instead, hurricane force winds forced a bumpy detour away from a storm-sieged landing pad, swerving in and out of the lava-belching volcanoes that dominated the northern continent until finally, the shuttle skidded onto the flat top of a dormant volcano. She questioned the dormant part, seeing as steam oozed out of the cracked ground, the rotten-egg stench of methane permeated the air and she sworeshe’d felt the earth beneath them trembling. Ashen landscapes extended in every direction as far as the eye could see, the terrain devoid of flora and fauna. None of the Yrythny seemed worried. Vanìmel was a geologically volatile world whose rapid plate tectonic shifts had more in common with a game of checkers than a reluctant, long-simmering buildup that resisted release. As a counselor, Ezri had known those who nursed grudges, simmering privately until some provocation unleashed suppressed torrents of anger, and those who lived daily from eruption to eruption. Vanìmel appeared to be the latter type.